Dear EU: What price hypocrisy?

[dArKeR]

Diplomatic niceties often occur within what can only be called the theater of the absurd, an observation that is probably lost on most of its practitioners.

A perfect example of such absurdity is the ongoing discussion among EU governments about ending an embargo on arms sales to Beijing so that sales might resume by June.

While such behavior is common to conventional diplomacy, it also reveals a deep hypocrisy. Most of the same countries systematically repudiate Taiwan's democratically-elected leadership while rewarding Beijing's autocrats.

The EU ban on arms sales was imposed after the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. There is little evidence that any safeguards have been put in place since that time to prevent such an incident from happening again.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2005/04/07/2003249487

[lenidog]

1. Ethics usually goes out the door when it comes to money

and the EU is seeing dollars signs. China needs hardware to update their military specifically high tech electronics which Russia can't or wont supply. The EU is seeing dollars signs because they know the US wont supply it to China, therefore they are the only ones the Chinese can come to. SO they get big bucks and don't really have to worry about compeititors.

[bvar22]

8. It's not the EU that is seeing $$$$.

It is the Global Corporation based in Euirope that are seeing $$$$.
The people of the EU are having the same trouble as the people of the US.

We (citizens of Planet Earth) are having our freedom and soverignty stolen by Global Corporations who operate ABOVE international borders and are accountable ONLY to themselves.

[dutchdemocrat]

2. It's all hypocrisy anyway....

Arming China means helping rebuild a balance of global power. China is obviously going to be the next superpower and everyone is lining up to sell them guns including Israel. Central Asia and its resources are the chessboard for the global games of this millenium.

Oh and I'll take absurd diplomatic games over unilateral, pre-emptive war, killing tens of thousands of innocents anyday. In terms of human rights, the USA, UK and other participants in the bloodbath have no moral captain's role after the "shock and awe" Nazi mimicing "Blitzkrieg" of an innocent nation.

Of course the source, the Taipei Times is bleating over the arms sales but soon there's not going to be any stopping China - not when they control the purse strings of the world economy with vast amounts of their reserves in US dollars and soon to be Euro.

[IrateCitizen]

4. There will be no more superpowers, only regional powers

Now, China certainly represents the up-and-coming regional power of the Pacific Rim. The day may even come in our lifetimes where China eclipses Japan as the power center of this region.

North America will be a tenuous balance between the US and Canada as the US's power wanes considerably over the next decade due to economic and military overreach. Germany and France appear positioned to continue as the prime centers of the EU, although only by a slight margin over some other nations. India will lead Southwest Asia. Brazil and possibly Venezuela will lead the leftist tilt in South America. Russia and Australia will largely continue to be their own entities.

But one thing is becoming glaringly apparent -- we are rapidly approaching the point at which there will be no more superpowers.

[aneerkoinos]

3. EU view

Three main arguments for dropping the EU ban, from most important to least important:

1. Building better trade relations with China, removing an obstacle that affects not only actual arms trade. EU is China's number one trade partner, and China's EU's number two (after US).

2. Political gesture marking the European and especially French-German preferability of multi-polar global power structure instead of uni-polar Empire.

3. Actual sales of military equipment, no big change likely, as the actual trade has to conform also to national legislation in each EU member, and e.g. AFAIK German legislation would still hinder arms sales to China.

And as for arguments related moral, moralizing and hypocricy: EU sells arms to US, a country that illegally invaded Iraq in a war of aggression, and some EU members were and still are part of that crime.

[Igel]

5. The article presupposes that encouraging/supporting democracy

is the EU's goal.

The EU is rather more bald-faced about its diplomacy in furtherance of its own interests. Stability under authoritarian governments outranks instability transitional to the unknown, when it serves their interests; instability outranks stability, when it serves their interests. If something doesn't serve their interests, they take no strong stand on it, unless after the fact it turns out it was in their interests, then they took a strong stand all along.

[aneerkoinos]

6. EU is many things

But bald-faced about its diplomacy it is not! :D

The usual complaint about EU in WTO and such forums is that at least with US you know where they come from, they are openly brutish ugly Americans, but European diplomatic niceness talks with a forked tongue!

Stability is very high on the European list of priorities, and rightly so, but not at the cost at not supporting genuinely democratic peacefull revolutions as in Ukraine, especially if they produce pro-EU governements.

But what you say about EU preferring stability under authoritarian governements outranking transition to the unknown is simply not true. The first priority for EU - which is a project of transition to the unknown itself - is to minimize instability so that what transitions are taking place would happen as peacefully as possible. And in that respect EU has pretty good score, not perfect with Yogoslavia as the opposite example, but generally the transition of former authoritarian soviet block towards democracy has gone pretty peacefully. Of course there is lot to be said about the devastation caused by the neoliberal economical model exported to these countries, but EU hardly is the only one to be blamed for that.

One essential aspect and difference between EU and US approaches is that EU furthers democracy and human rights on all social levels, through multilayered dialogue, but especially and most efficiently from bottom to up via NGO's (genuine NGO's, not CIA fronts). US has traditionally sticked to intragovernemental level and big boastfull words, playing more to the home-audience rather that being serious about any real change towards democracy or better human rights standards. Things change only when a destabilation against a genuine democratic leftist popular leadership is needed, then CIA and co bring their whole multilevel arsenal into play.

Yep, the real difference between EU and US foreign policies is that EU (the EU, not necessarily all foreign policies of member states to the same extent) is actually most of the time serious about furthering democracy and human rights, US don't really give shit about either and most of the time take action against them, never mind the rhetorics.

[Iterate]

7. Know your sources

A brief bio at: http://www.aworldconnected.org/article.php/936.html

The author is Christopher Lingle, an economist/consultant/teacher and promoter of Hayek and the sanctity of the free market. Think of him an economic evangelist, an ideological scout for the corporate colonizers. He writes critically of the EU and China from Taipei, and in a tone that is inflammatory, especially for an academic.

But that doesn’t mean he’s wrong about the EU, just someone whose arguments need close scrutiny.

The US has had a growing tendency to treat the EU as one object when it suits them, many countries when it doesn’t. I won’t go through each countries arms sales of the past 30 years, so for brevities sake let me start by agreeing that, yes indeed, the EU does sell arms to just about anyone who has cash in hand.

What a shock.

I could flood the LBN with almost daily announcements of one EU arms deal or another, and the same could be said of the US.

So what’s the difference?

The US uses arms sales to further its foreign policy aims, prop up corporate friendly governments, and punish or threaten those who are not. It has spread its “democracy” with this method, or by use of force. Internally, the arms contracts are doled out as political favors.

The EU has no such collective policy, and at least in the case of China, is using the deal to boost employment and keep its balance of payments with China from getting even worse. Cheap imports that slice local employment are an EU problem as well as well as one for the US. In fact, the employment problem is worse in the EU because that’s how it has spread its version of democracy –by using employment and economic incentives, eventually building a stable and educated class in neighboring states until peaceful democratization occurs and that state has asked to join.

Don’t get me wrong, I won’t be an apologist for the EU nations having turned a blind eye toward human right violations (as in Darfor right now), but given the long term peaceful success of the EU vs. the bloody disasters the US has in its wake…well it’s a small wonder that Mr. Lingle seems a little bit fearful, not of war for Taiwan, but of success for China.